consumer insights
Marketing & Advertising

Your Business Can’t Thrive Without Consumer Insights

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If you know what is going on inside your customers’ minds, what their wishes, problems, and needs are, this is the key to your company’s success.

With this information, you can offer products and services that are precisely tailored to your customers’ needs and thus create long-term brand loyalty among satisfied consumers.

This is exactly what our article is about: Consumer Insights. Here you can find out exactly what this newfangled word is, how you can obtain consumer insights, and how you can use them to your advantage.

What Is Insight in Marketing?

In the field of marketing, ‘insight’ refers to an “aha” experience that can positively benefit a problem situation. This solution-oriented insight is usually gained through new knowledge or experience.

Consumer insights do not necessarily have to be based on a problem. It can also be an insight into a new trend or a feeling.

Let’s take a look at classic commercials and slogans from successful companies to see how insights have been used.

Dove

Let’s take the body care brand Dove. Quite a few women suffer from the pressure of having to conform to the ideal of beauty.

Models or edited Instagram photos have created a real beauty craze that many people are chasing. The fact that a care product cannot transform every woman into a supermodel is well known to the Dove company.

Dove; consumer insights
Women Get Told Campaign by Dove

The realization that has come out of this is to tell women that it doesn’t matter at all. From this, Dove created the hashtag #WomenGetTold where along with a picture of a non-stereotypical female model, the caption reads a demeaning statement that women are often told that they can’t do due to their physique.

Zalando

Another success through consumer insight can be found at Zalando. The online store has worked out that neither browsing through the virtual catalog nor the wide selection has the strongest effect on the customer.

The most emotional moment is when the doorbell rings and the letter carrier hands over the eagerly awaited package. Zalando’s “Scream with Happiness” advertising campaign evolved from this realization.

Why Consumer Insights?

Consumer insights are worth their weight in gold. If you have insights on how to solve common problems with the help of your products or services, this is the optimum for your marketing.

With consumer insights, you can improve your customer relationships. Below, we’ll show you how consumer insights lead to improved brand perception.

Smooth Customer Journey

Before a final purchase is made, consumers go through a number of stages known as the customer journey. A common stage model that maps this journey is the AIDA principle. The acronym stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

  • In the first stage, the customer’s attention is captured. This can happen, for example, through an advertising poster or an ad on a social platform.
  • In the second step, the consumer’s interest is evoked. Here it depends on the special features that the company embodies. For example, via storytelling, a story about the company’s philosophy could be posted on the website of an online store.
  • In the third stage, the interest is converted into the desire to want to purchase the product. In online marketing, the method of retargeting is often used here.
  • The AIDA model ends with the last stage, the purchase decision.

Consumer insights can help you reduce the bounce rate in the various stages so that more potential customers actually make the journey to the purchase decision. For example, if you know that sustainability is a top priority for your target group, you should consider using fair trade and marketing it accordingly

Who Are You Dealing With?

Do you know your customers? Do you know what your target group looks like, what their preferences and buying motives are? Especially in online marketing, companies usually have a wealth of customer information at their disposal. It is important to use this information in a targeted manner.

Evaluate customer reviews and surveys to create profiles for your consumers. Once this is done, you can tailor your advertising message to your customers.

Go one step further and analyze the habits of your consumers. Just because you have the socio-demographic data of your customers does not mean that you can predict how consumers will act in which situation.

Here you can take into account scientific findings on general psychological behavior. On the other hand, you can also use your own data. One modern method is image recognition.

With the help of artificial intelligence, you can search the Internet to see how your product is being used. You can use various image recognition tools to see in which everyday situations your consumer goods are used by the customer.

Conversion clusters can also help you understand the habits of your consumers. Once again, AI comes into play here, analyzing numerous topic-related contexts for you.

Questioning Purchase Intention

You can use consumer insights to consolidate your consumers’ purchasing decisions. To do this, however, you need to be clear about your customers’ motives. For the corresponding analysis, it is helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do you sell consumer goods that consumers really need or are they products of choice?
  • Are your products trendy products that may be fast-moving?
  • Does the decision-making process for a purchase of your products tend to be lengthy and involve research work for consumers, as they are costly one-time purchases?

Clarify the questions for yourself and put yourself in the perspective of your consumers. What is their purchase intention? This is where the focus should be when developing consumer insights.

What is Insight Management?

Insight management is about collecting, analyzing and interpreting customer information. This includes general information about the person as well as needs, wishes, attitudes and problem situations.

The goal is to use the analyzed information to develop measures and strategies that will help win new customers or build stronger ties with existing customers.

The management of customer insights is important for various areas in the company. We present some aspects where you should build on customer insights.

Target Group

As with any marketing strategy, it is essential to define your target group precisely. Who do you want to address with your products? What do your typical customers look like and what is going on inside them?

Developing New Products and New Features

Customer insights are particularly relevant for the development of new products. Find out what type of product is likely to be of interest to your customers.

What is most important to your target group (quality, trends, environmental protection)? Adjust your value proposition accordingly.

The same applies to the release of new product features. Involve your customers in deciding when to launch which relaunches and how much they would be willing to pay for them.

Traffic and Leads

What is the general turnover in the company? Is it subject to fluctuations? What is your website traffic like? You should know the answer to these questions at all times.

If you can’t explain why sales are down or traffic is down, your existing customers may know the answer. Find out if they are satisfied with the quality and price, and why they are choosing your company’s products over those of your competitors.

Content Marketing

Content is only valuable if it fits the target group. Use consumer insight management to optimize your content marketing.

For effective storytelling, you need to know what stories customers want to hear. It is also interesting to know where the content is published. Which channels does your target group favor?

Change Your Corporate Design

Is your corporate design outdated and you want to tackle a complete redesign of your company website, logo and brochures? Don’t do this without knowing about consumer insights.

Create surveys about what consumers associate with your logo or what images would be well received on the website. A design agency can help you with this.

Conclusion

Consumer insights can be the key to success. Whether you’re entering new markets or redesigning your website, knowing what’s going on with your customers can help you optimize processes.

A smooth customer journey, strong customer loyalty and retention, and the acquisition of new customers are just a few of the benefits of consumer insight management.

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